Personal Links

Flickr Photos

Actually, I’m jealous

A woman in a thrift shop said this to me yesterday, and I took it as a nice compliment. “Actually, I’m jealous,” she said when commenting on the friendship she observed between me and my dear friend, Anne, as we shopped in the Agrace Thrift Shop in Madison.

Anne and I had planned this day for ourselves several weeks in advance. Neither one of us cared at all what we did, but we just wanted to BE together. I call this “friend time.” What you do and where you are doesn’t matter. What matters is having the luxury of time — lots of it — and the opportunity to talk about anything and everything.

After doing a bit of shopping in a fabulous artistic hip fabric store and having a delicious lunch of Indian food, we spied this Thrift Shop across the parking lot from the restaurant.

No big discussion needed. We went inside.

We browsed. We got separated and found each other several times. At one point I walked over to Anne carrying a juicer saying, “I think I need you to talk me out of buying this.” (The juicer was only $7.99 and looked in great shape. I’ve been considering trying juicing as a means to be healthier, but haven’t taken the leap to buy a juicer yet).

Anne immediately said, “Oh, I can do that.” Then without missing a beat she went on to tell me several reasons why this one wasn’t that great. I said, “Okay” and then walked over to put the thing back on the shelf.

A little later Anne came up to me with a small stack of CDs saying, “Will I like this music?” I looked them over and said yes I thought she would. As she walked away she said, “Just so it isn’t Wagner” (which made me smile.)

I hadn’t looked at the CDs so I wandered back there to peruse them. I thought Anne was nearby so I said, “Anne, how about Chopin and Schumann? I think you would like this one.” A woman came around the corner and said something like “Chopin sounds good.” I looked up and said, “Are you Anne?” — which in hindsight might have sounded a tad bit snarky but I meant it in a friendly way.

A little later I was trying to talk Anne into trying on a cool patchwork sweater. Anne was saying she didn’t trust her own judgement on sweaters anymore since she won an ugly sweater contest with a sweater she owned and liked. I said the sweater “looked like her” but I thought it might be too large for her, but it wouldn’t hurt to try it on.

At that point, the woman (the same one who responded to my CD question) came by and said she had enjoyed listening to our conversations and our manner of relying on each other’s advice.

Then she said it: “Actually I’m jealous. I wish I had a friend like that.”

I was speechless. My first thought was to say, “We’ll be your friends!” But then I realized that was impractical. Neither Anne nor I live in that town, and we are making quite an effort to keep our friendship in tact now that we are nearly 3 hours apart rather than just around the corner from each other. By the time I got through all those thoughts, the woman had drifted away so I didn’t have to say anything at all.

I was (and am) left with an overwhelming sense of gratitude. I’m thankful to have a friendship that just by being is noticeable and exceptional in a good way. I’m extremely blessed to have not just one friendship like this, but several — each unique and enriching.

The rest of the day was great, too. We went to a fabulous bead shop, then to a practically perfect coffee shop (where we dissolved into tears for just a few short minutes), and then browsed the adjacent “Absolutely Art” store.

Latte swirl2 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Here’s hoping you have a friendship that could be a source of envy. If you don’t, then open yourself to the possibility. Invest your time and energy with people who share your passions.

Be a good friend and you will create a good friend.
At least, I’ve always found this to be true.

Thankfully most of my friends live in or around P-ville. But one of my best friends is at school in Philadelphia. We really have to stay on top of scheduling phone chats and checking in via text. It’s amazing what distance can do. I absolutely agree invest in friendships like that. They ROCK!

YES! It is not easy to keep in touch and I’m not always consistent that is for sure. Facebook, skype and the various kinds of chat/video chat — all make communicating a lot more possible than just phone calls and writing letters did.
I miss you, Miss Katie! Thank you for reading and commenting.